John L wrote:

.XXX was in practice a special case because of all of the political attention it attracted. If it had been the 1000th new TLD, it wouldn't have been a big deal, but it was about the 10th so it was. The same problem will occur with any new domain that has moral or political implications, and the current plan which (roughly) gives anyone in the world a veto on moral grounds isn't going to work. That depends upon your definition of "work".

If the intent is to encourage (or at least allow) freedom of expression in TLDs, the objection process certainly is unacceptable; indeed, I recall that it was chided by the DoC as an attempt by ICANN to insert itself into moral and political realms in which it has no business being. (My own pet theory is that ICANN may have been swayed by the over-influencial presence of the GAC and IPC into thinking it's a treaty organization.) If the intent, however, is to deter controversial TLDs before they're even started, limiting applications to whose which offend nobody, then the plan arguably "works" towards that chilling goal rather effectively. - Evan